258 Notices of Books. (April, 
engine, in which we learn that the total zmternal mechanical 
work of a living man is no less than 715,000 foot-pounds per 
day, which Helmholtz calculates is equal to the total external 
work of a hard-working man. It has also been calculated that 
24 pounds of good coal, if its force could all be utilised, ought to 
produce in a steam-engine 2,145,000 foot-pounds of. mechanical 
work, or about three times the external work of a man. The 
third chapter treats of the skeleton; the fourth and fifth of 
chemical and histological preliminaries; in the latter, very good 
drawings of voluntary muscular fibre and of the structure of 
nerve fibre. The sixth and seventh chapters discuss the blood ; 
the eighth and ninth, respiration and animal heat; the tenth and 
eleventh, digestion (beautiful drawing of a vertical section of 
the coats of the stomach); an interesting chapter on animal 
mechanics, and concluding chapters on the voice, the ear, the 
eye, and the brain. The author appears to be quite au courant 
with the most recent results of physiology, and we heartily 
recommend his little treatise to those who desire to commence 
the study. 
The Methods of Ethics. By Henry Sripewicx, M.A., Lecturer 
and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: 
Macmillan and Co. 1874. 
DEFINING ethics as **the Science of Conduct,” the author shows 
that it may conveniently include the related studies of politics 
and jurisprudence. These sciences alike attempt to deter- 
mine the nature of the ideal, not the real; to demonstrate what 
ought to exist, not what does exist. The rational ends are 
divided into two only, 7.e., Perfection and Happiness, and 
the methods of Ethics are reduced in the main to three— 
Egoism, Intuitionism, and Utilitarianism. The end of Egoism 
is defined as ‘‘the sum of pleasures, valued in proportion to their 
pleasantness ;” the fundamental assumption of Intuitionism 
is ‘‘that we have the power of seeing clearly what actions 
are in themselves right and reasonable ;” while by Utilitarianism 
is meant the theory first distinctly enunciated by Bentham “‘ that 
the conduct which, under any given circumstance, is externally 
or objectively right, is that which will produce the greatest 
amount of happiness to all whose interests are affected.” The 
work, admirable as it is, possesses little interest for the man of 
science, as ethical modes of thought are altogether dissimilar to 
the usual modes of scientific thought; we may briefly glance, 
however, at the chapter on ‘ Philosophical Intuitionism.” A 
philosopher is allowed at the outset some amount of divergence 
from common sense, and he is expected to altogether transcend 
common sense in his premises, and to sink his plummet 
into profound and infinite depths. But such men have often, 
after a life of study, presented to the world a host of arguments 
